You can still catch the rather one-sided debate between Senators Steven Horsford (D-near Nor’Town) and Bob Beers (R-near Nor’Town) over on the May 24th edition of Face to Face if you hurry. The "debate" just goes to show that truth is very minimally connected to rhetoric.
If you’re still following the fate of Horsford’s SB 352, the Senate refused two amendments added by the Assembly, and both houses have created a conference committee to try and iron things out. One of the issues is whether grocery stores which set up shop in certain places get a tax break. The other is whether the state senator from the area, that is, Horsford, gets to sit on the committee that the bill creates, or just some member at large from the Legislature. At least, that’s how I read the amendments.
Assemblygal Marilyn Kirkpatrick (D-Nor’Town) was all over the Sun as part of the "dynamic duo" which was trying to fix that "green-building" tax bill. Debbie Smith of Sparks was the other half of the "duo". The green-building mess came about because the Legislature discovered that tax breaks to businesses for building environmentally friendly buildings were too generous–at least during times of huge growth with a Governor unwilling to raise taxes to fund any. Growth, I mean.
Kirkpatrick got a bit weepy about the roads in Nor’town, too, but they make us all cry, don’t they?
Thank the nice Governor and Legislature for coughing up only 1/5 of what’s necessary to fix the mess.
And Ruben Kihuen (D-Nor’Town) was last seen sucking up to the Gube.
Ooops. Can’t forget Kelvin Atkinson, who’s picture is showing up all over the state. (AP,AP) Atkinson brokered that 1/5th deal which passed the Assembly. That is, it came up with about 1/5th of the money considered necessary to fix the roads. A bunch of Clark County state senators are currently in revolt against the Atkinson bill:
Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, vowed to
try today to amend Assembly Bill 595, which passed the Assembly 40-2
earlier Friday, to tack on an increase of 6 cents per gallon in the
diesel fuel tax and force the trucking industry to help alleviate the
mammoth shortfall.Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, agreed that the Legislature must raise more revenue for highway construction.
"I am prepared to stay here all month long," Coffin said of the legislative session that is scheduled to end Monday.
"Some
of us aren’t," replied Assembly Transportation Chairman Kelvin
Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, who helped craft the bill that would allow
the state to float a $1 billion bond and begin work on highway projects. (RJ)
Back to work, Kelvin.
[UPDATE: This just in: the Senate Taxation Committee passed the road funding bill over Coffin's objections. (AP)]
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